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felt convinced the best location for it is Pasadena, California.
There are many reasons. Last summer we spent one month there,
trying to lay plans. We had a building site selected---had gone so
far as to have architects design the building---had been able to
make arrangements with a contractor who could supply all building
materials---and we even had virtual assurance we would be able to
get the very necessary government CPA permit, since this was to be
a SCHOOL and in the Los Angeles district, two things the government
is encouraging. But the lot was not large enough. We learned the
new Los Angeles "free-way" project is to take several feet off the
side of it. We had to give it up. There would have been no
grounds---no campus.
Then my educator-advisers began to impress on me the
desirability---in fact the NECESSITY, for a successful school,---of
ample grounds for a campus, and of ample recreational facilities.
As one life-long friend, with whom I grew up in the same Sunday-
school class, now dean at one of the large Coast colleges, put it,
while we are planning this for a SPIRITUAL and CHARACTER purpose,
yet the physical goes hand in hand with it, and physical assets are
required. Another thing, I learned we would be unable to build our
own building for some time, because we would be unable to secure
any financing. Banks and mortgages and loan companies will not
loan money to a CHURCH, and are very reluctant to finance a
"special purpose" type building. It looked hopeless.
Then, just last week, I happened in the office of a real-
estate dealer I knew in Pasadena. This dealer knew our plans for
a college. She is a widow carrying on her husband's real-estate
business. "Say," she exclaimed, "I have just gotten hold of the
first property I've had since the war that is a REAL BARGAIN, and
not inflated---it isn't what you had in mind, but I believe it is
JUST THE THING for your college, far better than what you planned."
She took me to see it. It was one of the large estates of
Pasadena---former home of one of the nation's most wealthy and
prominent families. It had almost 2« acres of the most
beautifully-landscaped grounds. A fortune was spent on the
landscaping alone. It has a championship tennis-court in perfect
condition. It has an 18-room house, a fairly-modern mansion built
of re-inforced concrete, and a six-car garage with two five-room
apartments in the same building. It was a marvelous, beautiful
place, but I knew we could never buy such a place. You'd know the
name of the family who built it if I mentioned it. They spent
almost half million dollars on it. But it is now owned by a man
who has been a life-long educator. Some years ago he was dean of
the school of law at the University of Oregon, here in our home
city of Eugene. He became so enthused over our plans for a
different kind of school, and assured me this place was just
PERFECT for such an institution---the grounds just PERFECT for a
small college-campus---the buildings PERFECTLY adapted to the needs
of the school,---that he offered me the place at a ridiculously low
figure, only a fraction of what it really cost,---and at such terms
as to actually place it within our reach. Still, I took several
days to study every angle, obtain every expert advice, and BE SURE
---to "PROVE ALL THINGS," before accepting it, and going ahead with
it. I called up my life-long friend, the dean, in San Francisco.